Never getting married or having children. But then again 1) I simply never met the right man where I could commit to marriage; and 2) I've seen plenty of marriages go very bad over the years and often thank God I was spared.
I guess I've just learned to deal with what life has handed me. I'm not sure this is a "regret" or not.

I wish I'd have been a better mother when my kids were small.

I wish I'd taken Latin in high school;
I have *no* gift of languages (do well to speak comprehensible English!),
but Latin is the basis, not only for so many languages, but so many vocabularies (medical, religious, botanic, etc).

I have regrets of things I have said in life and friendships I may have let go.

For me all my mistakes and all the wrong roads I have taken, have led me to where I am today~~wonderful husband, great kids and gkids.

I do wish I had gotten more education~~~

Regrets? Too many to list but one thing I have never done is allow life to get boring. :-)

Jodi-

The high school I went to was a college prep school. Where many of the graduates went on to be doctors, lawyers and other professionals, I only went to a two-year college to learn business and secretarial science. I didn't even want to go to college, but I had no marketable skills.

Wonder sometimes what would have happened if I had more ambition.

Yes, many. But moving forward trying to do better and chosing happiness anyway.

biggest is not going to college...which is probably a direct result of regret #2...spending to much of my high school years stoned.

Not really - or maybe I just don't spend time pondering that question and coming up with them. I'm a big believer in moving on and not dwelling on things that are done that you can't do anything about. What I do regret - that's outside of my control - is that my parents and siblings struggled with a lot of difficulties in their lives. I have been so blessed and have had such a good life that it often makes me sad when I think about my family and wonder how much joy they had compared with with all the sorrow and sadness.

Getting married to the person I married. Not leaving earlier than I did. Going back to school to become a nurse.

I'm turning 30 in a few months and I'm really struggling with it. I thought for sure I'd be married with kids by now but that hasn't happened and I'm worried that if I ever do get married, it will be too late for kids.

On the other hand, I have a great job, great credit, no debt, no obligations other than showing up to work and total freedom to do whatever I want so I try to keep that in mind. I'm sure there are many married people with kids who would love my lifestyle!

Regrets?
Not really.

Life's been more than good to me.

I have to tell myself, I made the best decisions I could at the time I made them. So not really any "regrets" per se (Latin does help, also with legal terms. But my boss says his many years of Latin have done him no good; he wishes he'd taken Spanish instead). I wish I could do some things over, but that's just hindsight.

I would've gone straight through university to the terminal degree's end. I would've been much farther along in life and that would be good, but I do love what I do without further schooling or that career.

I would've not married if I could redo it. I think I spent too many years being less than happy because of it. There is a lot of work in marriage. It can be good, but dang, it's hard. It's all that has caused my money problems. But I do have a son from marriage, and that more than makes up for most all of the curveballs of what migh have beens.

I would've started saving money much much earlier. Of course, by now, it'd likely all be gone. So not a problem!

And two of them, I've passed on my wisdom to my son with the caveat, easier said than done.

Not the marriage one, there are just too many factors to say which way is/was best. I do wonder how different things would be if I'd chosen different people, and I actually am still in converstation with almost every good and dear boyfriend. I think they're all fantastic, but might not think so if I'd married them. I'm even in conversation with 2 of the 3 ex-husbands. I would never be with 2; we've run that relationship course fully. He's the only one I'd never say more hello, how are you, if I saw him.

I would never have gotten married and I would have left home when I turned 18.

I do have a couple of regrets but do wonder, knowing what I know now, whether I would have changed the decisions that I made (or didn't make)in the past. I try not to dwell on the roads not taken.

But, for example, I can't stand my MIL. She is/was insulting to my parents, me (apparently I wasn't her first choice in a bride for my Dh and has reminded me of it) and is a mean-spirited gossip. I kicked her out of my life 5 years ago and am so much better for it, but it took me 20 years to do that. If I had done it earlier I'm not sure what it would have accomplished except I would have been happier. But it might have affected the relationship that my kids had with her as kids. Now that they are young adults they can choose whether or not they see her.

Our marriage has had a couple of rocky patches because of her but now that she is out of the picture for me it's better. My DH still sees her and that's his decision.

I regret not going against my parent's wishes and have went to art school... or have went to real estate school back in the 80's when I had the chance to go for free. As it is I have no marketable skills.

I really don't have any.
I believe in taking life as it comes, and when it comes to events and decisions in my life that could have left regrets, created the life that I live now...and it's a good one.

I wish I would have gone to nursing school when my dad suggested it when I was around 20. He offered to let me live at home free of charge if I would be in school. After high school I attended a 2 year college and got my Associate's degree in secretarial practices. If I had known then that I would be working full time until I was 65, I probably would have gone to nursing school. I would have made a lot more money and had more retirement income.

As a very wise acquaintance of mine once said...."What's the point of regrets?"

I don't regret marrying my husband but I do regret marrying so young, as does he. We were basically forced into getting married by his parents because they were worried that I'd get pregnant and taint their reputation. I'm not sure why. We were married 5 years before we did have kids. If we would have waited to get married, I would have finished college and I believe my husband would have figured out what he wanted to do with his life also.

Would have like to be more on my own, let parents dominate me too much, and thank goodness, my kids have all broke the cycle. Do miss my MIL, and my grandparents, but I just remind myself that my folks did the best they could not financially, but emotionally. But like several remind me, we cannot go back, but we can only change ourselves.
Would have saved more money and learned to pay the piano instead of string instruments.

"he never hesitates to bring it up when we have an argument. He still calls me a liar and judgmental."

This is a big sign of an abusive/controlling person.

"Fighting fair" means sticking to the subject at hand & not re-hashing everything that's happened over the last hundred years.

& calling your partner ugly, accusatory names is abuse.

thought of another regret;
I wish I'd taken my own life & future seriously.

As several others have posted, as a young (married) woman, I went the secretary/clerical/customer service route rathr than getting into a profession or career.

It's just what we did back then, but I wish I'd swum against that particular tide.

Nope. The decisions I've made had led me to the life I have now. If things were different, today would be different. I like today, will like tomorrow and the rest of my life. My errors have made me grow and learn. One can't regret learning!

Advice from an old sage....all of 50 years old!

Yes.....many regrets......

Many regrets here too and if this forum were not so public I would list them. However, it would all come under the heading of wishing I had put myself first far more often than I did. I wish I had taken more chances and believed in myself.

I regret not going to college even though I don't know what I would have gone for. I graduated in 1970 and was the fourth of 10 kids. I knew we couldn't afford it and it was never even talked about. I have been a cook all of my life and sometimes I think people look down on me for it. I know one time for sure. When I started at the place I am at now the one who taught me what I had to do said to me so you are going to stay here for the rest of your life. She had gotten a job with the state and she thought she was better than me. I am good at my job and now I try to avoid her as much as possible. I don't need people like that in my life.

Its a wonder that any marriages work. We often come from such different backgrounds and have made our own decisions about how to live. The compromises that one has to deal with to make a marriage work can be very hard, particularly if one of the partners won't compromise.

I think we all have something we have regretted but speaking for
myself I made wrong choices in my life. That I have regretted. I
possible could have change them if I had support from my mother
But her mantra was You made your bed you lie in it.....she was
A tough Irish lady and my dad went along with whatever she said.

I wish I would have gotten a degree in Public Health Nursing.....
I did the best I could and I am happy with that......no time to think coulda, woulda, shoulda at this point in my life.
Well, one regret.....I wish I would have kept my mouth shut in a recent conversation.

I have a huge regret that I will carry with me until I die. Many folks would probably consider it silly, but it causes me such heartache...

When I was in high school, my mother would often make a lunch for me to take. Many times I would throw it away or give it away, and then buy lunch in the school cafeteria. But I would always let my mother think that I ate the lunch she had packed for me. I never, ever, told her that I didn't always eat the lunch that she had taken the time, energy, and love to prepare for me. And I feel so guilty for that, and have felt that guilt/regret for an awful lot of years (I'm 63 now).

Lindsey your mother would understand. She made lunch for you, caring, each day, and you got the message that stays with you still. She loved you. And you know it! Job accomplished. :) Bless you.

Nope, I would do it all over again.. Been married 45 years, had 3 great kids and now 8 grandkids. I guess I would have traded in my MIL if I could have.. She was a dilly!!! But she gave me a great husband so I guess she did something right.

I have been regretting how I abruptly broke up with a nice guy I dated when I was 16 or 17, over 50 years ago. Besides my husband, he was the other truly nice, decent and respectful guy in my life. I broke his heart, and I still regret that. I hope he has had a wonderful wife and family, as he deserves it. I can still picture his face when I ran into him on campus a couple of years later, and clearly, his heart was still broken. I felt awful.

I regret not standing up to my parents who decided for me I'd take nursing or be a teacher when I didn't want to be either. I reluctantly went to college and studied elementary education. I got married right after and never taught a day in my life. Education is never wasted and I guess it gave me a liberal arts appreciation.

But I would have studied design. My daughter had the choice, and she should have picked design instead of journalism which she got her Masters degree in.

Instead of designing for other people, we are constantly redesigning our own houses. It gets expensive....lol

I think most everyone regrets something in their life when they look at it. If you can do something about it, you do it, otherwise, why obsess over it? Things in my life could have been better had I done certain things, or did them differently but at the same time, things could have been a LOT worse had I not done a lot of things I did or did them differently.

I have lots of regrets, and unfortunately, I am going to pay for some of them, the rest of my life. I wish I could go back and change things, I would definitely do things different. If I would have known then what I know now!? I still have some good in my life though.

The only regret I have is not calling hospice a lot sooner as my husband was in the last months of his illness. It would have made both of our lives so much easier towards the end, but fear and denial are very strong when death looms.

I think I should have said, "No," to others more often, and, "Yes," to myself.

There were some people in my youth that I was mean to, for no good reason. And I regret it, because that is not who I was. Nothing serious (no intense bullying or anything), I just could have been nicer, that's all.

Dances.

Sorry I never got around to having children, but by the time I was mature enough to raise children, I was too old to have them. I was able to do so many other things that having a family might have precluded, so I can't be too unhappy about it!

I wish DH & I'd moved to a nearby BIG city immediately afer we met. Our parents were too demanding.

Wish I'd taken the networking job I was offered 20 years ago. Then applied for the job @ Oracle and retired 20 years later.

Yes many...but I am also appreciative of what I have :)

Well hindsight is always 20/20! I see a lot of regrets that revolve around not enough education....well back 30 or even only 20 years ago, a person didn't have to have a college degree to get a good paying job so how would we have known that in today's sorry aZZ economy that employers would only pay good wages to someone with a Master's Degree! The employment situation of today is really quite ridiculous!

Somewhat sorry that I did such a poor job of letting my ex- (several years deceased) know how important she was to me ... how much I loved her.

My dad's family were somewhat undemonstrative, and he was an only child ... who said once, some years after Mom got sick and his mother came to live with us, that her ideas
about raising kids were 20 years out of date when she raised him.

Mom became hospitalized with mental illness when I was past six, and died when I was 13, 2 brothers younger. Her family are more demonstrative ("the kissin' XXXs") ... and I think that our family life would have been different has she been with us dthrough our growing up years.

Another regret - that son says that there is no god - that all religions are merely superstitions and is rather militant about it. I have to understand that his choice of lifestyle is his to choose, and accept that.

A third is that I didn't get to operate as a clergyperson through all the years of one's career, and Sue's and my parting ove 40 years ago, when clergy just didn't DO that, was not the whole of it.

That should be about enough for one day, dontcha think?

ole joyful

Arkansas_girl: in my experience you don't have to have a masters degree to get paid "good wages". I'm not exactly sure where you draw the line on good wages vs bad but I'd go so far to say you don't even need a four year degree if you learn a trade or skill that is in demand and deliver above and beyond performance on the job. I see it first hand at my company and I personally don't have a masters degree though I do have a BS.

I do think a good number of people are in a bind these days in that the work they used to do is no longer as in demand and/or high paying as it once was. Hopefully it's not too late for some of those folks to get new education and retooled for today's jobs.

I have a few regrets in my life. But they are between me and my Spirit/God/Goddess/Whomever exists out there and hears me.

I have recently reflected that the passage through this life really does try and teach you to be a better person along the way. Learning from my regrets and mistakes I hope has made me a better person than I was 20 years ago!

I agree Gibby; my dh has mastered the trade of welding and always provides extreme customer satisfaction and has provided us with a very nice lifestyle. Although, if we had it to do over again, we'd both go further in our education.

Yes there are always exceptions to the rules...always and there are also always those lucky ones that were in the right place at the right time and took advantage of the situation to the best of their ability. I too know many older people that have managed good incomes without more than a trade or a high school diploma. I also know those that at an older age, their jobs(of many years I might add) were outsourced to Asia and are now struggling to pay bills because they don't have the right education anymore and at an old age just don't see going back to college with tens of thousands $$$ in debit is an option. Just consider yourselves to be very lucky if you or your spouse has not lost their long time job.

I am very lucky - I've been in my job for 31 years. Unless the company goes belly-up, I should be stable until I want to retire (would love to do that right now!).

Many regrets, but I try my best not to dwell on them or the bad choices I've made...still mess up at age 69. :(